A taxi driver who stole a passenger's mobile phone, only to charge it in the owners house some days later, has been sentenced to a fine of ¢2 million by the Senchi District Magistrate Court in the Eastern Region, presided over by Ms Barbara Doe.

The prosecutor, Chief Inspector Felicia Hlormenu, told the court that the complainant, Augustine Tayekumah, a retired VRA pensioner, and the accused, Fidelis Nuagbe, were both residents of Akosombo.

She said about two months ago the complainant chartered the accused person's taxi to Atimpoku and back at a fee of ¢60,000 or GH¢6. When the complainant alighted, his Motorola mobile phone which he had bought for ¢1.8 million or GH¢180 fell inside the taxi.

Nuagbe later saw the phone, picked it, removed the chip and sent it home.

When the complainant got home, he detected that his mobile phone was missing. After a fruitless search for it, he realised that he might have dropped it in the taxi he chartered to Atimpoku so he went to ask the taxi driver.

The accused person who planned to steal the phone, failed earlier on to inform the GPRTU executives at Akosombo station of the mobile phone in his car, as stipulated by their laws, neither was he ready to tell the truth when the owner appealed to him.

The prosecution said in the morning of July 9, 2007, the accused person gave the phone to his younger brother to charge for him.

The brother, who did not have a charger of the stolen phone, also gave it to his friend, who happened to be the son of the complainant, with a similar charger to charge for him.

In the process of charging the phone, the son of the complainant, together with his father identified the phone to be that of the complainant.

The brother was confronted and he mentioned his elder brother, Nuagbe, as the one who gave him the phone.

Nuagbe was therefore arrested and charged for stealing.


Source: The Mirror